1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a robot system for dishing food contained in a food conveying container on a food dishing container, e.g. a lunch box and a dish, by handling the food conveying container using a robot. The present invention is applicable to dishing operations of liquid or fluid food as well as processed food and rice. The “food” as referred to in the specification includes various condiments such as sugar, salt, source and soy source.
2. Description of Related Art
Handling of food by a robot is adopted in packing a processed food such as a frozen food into a box in a food processing factory. However, dishing of a cooked food processed by heat on a dishing container, such as a lunch box, a dish and a plate, has been carried out manually and it is scarce to use a robot for dishing such food.
In the case of using a robot for dishing food on a dishing container, it is carried out by holding a shaped food and it is regarded to be difficult to dish the liquid or fluid food and thus scarcely carried out. There is not known a robot system for dishing food comprising a plurality of pieces of food such as boiled vegetables or shapeless food such as julienne of cabbage on the dishing container such as lunch box and a dish by a robot.
A cause of failing to provide a robot system for dishing food other than shaped food on the food dishing container is considered that the food which can be held by a hand of a robot is restricted to the solid food. There arise problems that a structure of the robot hand is made complicated for handling a food other than the shaped food such as a frozen food and special hands dedicated for respective kinds of food are required, to increase a cost of the robot system.
Further, in the conventional method of directly hold the food, it is difficult to cope with new menu rapidly. Specifically, the food heated or thawed is soft and tends to be deformed and therefore there is a case where the food is deformed by direct holing by a robot hand to lose value as a commodity. Further, it is difficult to securely carry the deformed food to a predetermined position for conveyance.
This is not a rare case. For example, the foods to be dished on a lunch box are shapeless and of variety of kinds, such as rice, cut cabbage, boiled vegetable and pasta, etc. It has been desired a robot system for securely dishing the various foods on the food dishing containers.